This invention relates to a data storage managing apparatus and a method for managing data storage, and more particularly, to a data storage managing apparatus and a method for managing data storage having high capacity.
In the data storage industry, a large amount of data is needed to be stored for fast access on computer systems and archived for historic reference. Large storage systems are required to contain historical records and current data. The data stored in such large storage systems is in turn accessed and analyzed continually for new information. The timeliness to retrieve and deliver the information is important for productivity. Multiple sources of data may need to be accessed in multiple locations.
There exist different forms of large storage, such as tape silos and optical jukeboxes. Existing large storage products provided from large data storage suppliers are often limited by their requirements to use proprietary software management systems. Those proprietary systems require selected server processors and operating systems. The support of these few systems limits the availability of processors supported and timely availability for new storage equipment. Some vendors only support popular operating systems for the applications that require storage. As well, the applications written for various proprietary systems developed by each vendor have highly variable software quality. They do not support many more specialized processor systems.
Conventionally, storage systems are attached directly to server processors that contain the user application. FIG. 1 shows typical steps taken by a conventional data storage managing device. First, the device receives a request (2), and then accesses the data storage (4) to which the device is connected.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,642,337 issued to Oskay et al on Jun. 24, 1997 discloses a storage system with optical mass storage devices. The storage system is connected to a network of magneto-optical disk jukeboxes which operates on Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) commands. A network server receives SCSI format commands, encodes them to the network format, and places the commands on the network bus. Thus, the storage system is intercoupled on the network to provide a virtually limitless mass storage system. However, this system is limited to use of SCSI format commands and the specific network format. Only SCSI request commands may be used. The network server simply translates the SCSI commands into the request in the storage network format directly. The network can only to be comprised of only the same type of the jukeboxes. If this system were to be used with a different type of format, the whole system would need to be redesigned.
It is therefore desirable to provide a data storage managing system which can operate with many different computing systems and also support many different data storage devices.
The present invention translates a host Input/Output (I/O) request into a standard form. Thus, I/O requests sent by different hosts using different protocols are treated in the same manner for accessing the data storage. The I/O request in the standard form is then normalized by adding a storage address. The normalized request is routed based on the storage address. Therefore, the present invention enables transparent communication between various types of hosts and various types of storage devices.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a data storage managing apparatus for managing data storage. The data storage managing apparatus comprises a request processing unit, a normalizer, a router and an access unit. The request processing unit is provided for receiving an Input/Output (I/O) request using a local protocol, and translating the I/O request into a translated request in an internal protocol. The normalizer has a storage address generator for generating a storage address and adding the storage address to the translated request to generate a normalized request. The router is provided for routing the normalized request based on the storage address. The access unit is provided for accessing one of the storage devices based on the storage address.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for managing data storage. The method comprises the steps of receiving an Input/Output (I/O) request for writing or reading data to or from the data storage, the I/O request being received using a local protocol; translating the I/O request into a translated I/O request within an internal protocol; normalizing the translated request by adding a storage address to output a normalized request; routing the normalized request based on the storage address; and accessing the data storage based on the storage address.
Other aspects and features of the present invention will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art from a review of the following detailed description of preferred embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.